Thegreatgalling's Life Size T-850 Terminator 3 Statue

I am so glad to report that I have started working on my life size Terminator 3 Arnold statue. Off the bat, I have to thank Steve “streetjudge79” for his immense help, advice, and beyond amazing paint job. I could not have gotten this far without him.

The statue began as a Fettster cast of a production made T3 casting originating from Stan Winson studios, and purchased from Prop Store. It was awesome of Rich to offer the community a chance to own a copy of this amazing bust.

An initial problem Steve and I faced was that at the time, we were not able to source a set of neck pistons and neck hose (and also the cheek and eye pistons).
My quick solution was an allen wrench socket extender and the skinniest metal hose I can find.
Here is what Steve initially had to work with. He did an amazing job considering they did not properly fit:

NEW PISTONS

A little while after, Steve thankfully sourced the right pistons and sent them to me. It took a little to convince myself to undo what was installed, but I think the new pistons really made a huge difference. Special thanks to ONEYE for his advice in this thread:

After a few months, I noticed that duck tape tends to stretch. I had used duck tape to secure some hands on a statue and over time, it pulled loose. (And this was Gorilla’s Tough Duck Tape). Since then, I got into the habit of using hot glue to reinforce the tape.

At first, I tried experimenting with Great Stuff foam, but I forgot to shake the can and put too much at one time. As a result, it wouldn’t cure and ended up a slimy mess. Thankfully I cleaned most of it off without ruining the floor and covered the chest up with duck tape to smooth it out.

Next came the chest appliance which Steve also painted for me:

The technique I used to build up his muscles was to use rolled up paper towel and duck tape to build it out a little at a time.
Because this was a T3 bust, I used Arnold’s competition measurements and decreased them all around to how I felt he appeared on screen. I also used some anatomy pics which helped in sculpting the muscles.
I knew he was somewhere in between his hay day:

And how he looked when he couldn’t work out due to heart surgery:

These pics came in handy:

Little by little, I built him up:

And added his leg appliance:

GLOVED HAND

Next I worked on his glove hand. This may be a temporary stand in, but I am pretty happy with it. I wanted the right hand to be burned and exposed as well, but I also wanted it to be posable.
Here was my solution:
I purchased a wooden display hand:

Looks great Joe. Obviously Steve's paint app and the cast is superb but im really liking the score with the endo hand thru the glove. Really was a prize find and works so well.
will come to life once you beat and stain that jacket

It's getting there. I would love to hear from some Terminator fans whether the T2 damage on the T3 bust is blasphemy or whether some license is expected. I would at least want the arm. The leg is MUCH more daunting of a thought.

Joe - as a Terminator fan, I think this rocks! I will be the first to admit I'm not a purist - but isn't the main goal of this hobby to have stuff that we like? I see no sin in using T2 damage on a T3 model. I'd be willing to bet that if the green screen and cgi technology existed when T2 was made, Arnie would have looked more like he did in T3.

Awesome work. Love how you buffed out the mannequin.
What size pants and jacket did you go with if I might ask?

Best
TAZ

Click to expand...

34 WAIST:

T3:

Pants were custom tailored. Here were the complete measurements. They were based on a modern day compensation of Arnie's competition weight. I compared pics and did a little photoshop comparison. This is what I came up with: